Bluewing
by IsraelBlargh
Summary: A world-weary Max Caulfield makes a cameo appearance in Season 2, perhaps hinting at the overarching story tying up the whole series.


At the time I didn't think my life could get any weirder. But then I got the visit.

She showed up late at night. I was sleeping. She turned on the lights and casually leaned against my computer desk, waiting.

"Dad?" I mumbled. "Did I sleep late? The alarm didn't go off..."

There was no answer. I squinted painfully, waiting for my eyes to adjust. I saw her.

"Hello, Liz," she said. "Please don't freak out. I'm here to help you."

"Aah!"

I half jumped, half fell off the other side of the bed. I thumped noisily onto the ground and turned to stare.

The woman put out her hands in a stalling gesture. "I'm a friend, Liz. I'm an ally. I have powers, just like you."

She was calm and soft-spoken. Early twenties, short, slight of frame, tan hair neatly tied up in a ponytail. Dressed in a deep blue coat. Her face...

It was the face of someone that didn't sleep often, or at all.

I swallowed. "What the fuck—"

"I'm a friend," she repeated, slowly and clearly. "I have powers. Like _you_ have powers."

"I don't know what—"

"Don't know what you're talking about," she said over my words. "It's good that you hide it, but you don't need to hide from me. 'Cause, you know, you can't. Go ahead, do what you do and read my mind. It'll make this go faster."

I didn't do a damn thing. I kept staring, thoughts like white ink on a blank page.

"Take your time. I have plenty."

I looked at the stranger some more. Maybe this was just another vision, like Mr. Sullivan getting mugged, like Stacy dead and buried. There was no color shift that I could notice, though.

 _I have powers,_ she'd said.

Did she...did she know what was going on? Did she know what was happening to me?

I couldn't resist. I had to take a look. I reached out with my mind and focused.

The images hit me all at once, blasting into my brain in a towering avalanche of experiences. Past, present and future, tangled and twisted beyond understanding. There was no beginning, no end, no sense, rhyme or reason. Lifetime upon lifetime upon lifetime piled on top of one another.

The pain of seeing everything and nothing at the same time brought me to my knees. I groaned, leaning on the bed for support. This woman was _not_ twenty years old. Not even close.

I heard her chuckle. "Though I didn't say it'd make it easier for you. We've gone through this before."

"What was that? Who...who the fuck are you?"

"You get visions of people. You play with their thoughts. Well, I can rewind time however I please, among other things. Take a moment to sort out what you saw, you'll know I'm speaking the truth."

Her thoughts were as if enclosed in a fortress, but there was no escaping the images running through my brain. Among the clusterfuck of visions I saw this woman in a thousand places, sorting through myriad points in time—redshifted for the past, blueshifted for the future. Locations, faces, conversations. Some of the people she talked to...they had powers too.

I saw myself among them, twice. In one image, I was the chubby loser I'd always been. In the other, far in the future...

"Is that...is that what I'll become?"

"What you might become, what you've become, what I've erased...who knows which one you saw."

"I looked pretty badass."

The woman shrugged. "It's nice that you think so. You've always lacked a bit the self-esteem department."

I pursed my lips. "Such observational skills. It might be another super power."

"There's the snark, too. It might be shitty now, but life gets better, Liz. In that regard, at least. I know you've heard that bullshit before, but you can definitely believe it from me." She winked. "I've a way of knowing these things."

"That's...nice."

Could this really be another vision? It was hard to tell. The line between thought and reality had blurred significantly in the past week. "What...what do you want with me?"

"Right now? Nothing really. I'm here to adjust a few things, and doing this makes a pretty big difference. I'm basically done, now. Don't worry about it."

"But you'll answer some questions, right? You can't just leave me like this."

"I can do whatever I please, actually. Well, as long as I stay conscious. You can't shut people down yet, right?"

"Uh—"

"I'm just fucking with you, Liz. I know it'll be over a year before you can do that."

I raised an eyebrow at her. Was this woman just bored, randomly trolling me in the middle of the night? "Look, could you just tell me what's happening to me?"

"I wish. Call it a curse, call it a blessing, you and me and people like us, we were...touched. I don't know how it works. And the reason? Well, I'm working on that, but the reason's for us to decide. I could as well have decided to let the world burn, but that's not what I want. That's not what _you_ will want, either."

I snorted. "The way it's treated me so far, I wouldn't be so sure."

"Hah. Trust me on this one. Do you have any idea how many times I've given this speech to you?" She sighed, her expression friendly. "But it's always been fun to do this with ya. You know, the first time we met, it was by accident. I was a random stranger at the gas station and you tried your powers again for fun. You did _not_ have fun, as it turns out. That was...many realities ago. It would have happened a couple days from now."

All the twisty verb tenses made a tangle of my thoughts. It didn't help that I'd just been jolted awake from deep sleep.

"Anyway," she continued, "this is only the beginning of your abilities. I sucked too when I started. Everything I did hurt, I fainted a lot. I fucked up a million times. Just be glad _you_ won't break reality if you're not careful. I've always been a bit jealous of you, actually—I think I'd have enjoyed your powers far more than mine. Then again, the grass is always greener, right?"

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, no doubt looking clueless. Was this supposed to be a conversation? Did she even expect an answer?

She seemed amused. "Sorry, I'm feeling chatty, I guess. I don't get to talk much lately, and I like working this far back, before all the real shit goes down. Speaking of, here's a piece of advice you won't follow, but I feel like giving it anyway."

I pushed down the teenager in me eager to roll her eyes and give the finger. "I- I really could use some advice, actually. Please."

"Sure, okay. Here goes. So far only Alexis knows. You should tell her you lost your powers, and then you shouldn't bring _anyone_ into this, ever again."

"What? But...I'll go insane. She's the only thing—"

"Keeping me sane, she's my BFF, I can't do it without her, blah blah blah. Don't know why I'm even trying, but listen. This thing you can do...the burden is yours alone. Or rather, ours, people like us. Everyone else just gets hurt sooner or later, no matter what you do. And I don't mean 'oh no, I hurt her feelings'. I mean ruined for life. I mean outright killed. I learned that the hardest way you can imagine." She looked me up and down, then rolled her eyes. "And so will you, of course. What's even the point?"

The woman raised a hand, then hesitated. She twisted her lips into a frown.

"Fuck it, I'm not taking it back. Maybe it'll make a difference this time. Maybe this is the future I've been working for, who the hell knows."

"I don't understand half the things you say."

"Forget about it. I'm done here, anyway. Your secret is safe with me, Liz. I carry far too many to count."

"W- wait, wait, I don't even know who you are!"

"At some point in the future, you will know my real name." The stranger pulled out a pen and a post-it pad from her messenger bag. She started writing on it. "I won't be able to keep it from you. But it's fine, we'll trust each other by then."

"You're seriously not going to tell me your name?"

"Not yet. Nothing personal, I just know it's a bad idea. For now, you can call me..." She paused dramatically. "Bluewing."

Her mildly amused smile had returned.

"Bluewing?"

She made an actual bow and flourish, then returned to the note. To this day I believe she was not ironic about it.

"O...kay..."

"You think it's lame, I know. It'll grow on you."

"If you say so. What are you writing?"

"I'm leaving you proof that I was here. Otherwise you'll convince yourself that none of this was real, and that path was a waste of my time. My...admittedly expendable time."

She looked up briefly. Her smile had lost all mirth. Our eyes met, and in that moment of eye contact something passed between us. I glimpsed a hint of her mind without even meaning to; my senses were immediately overwhelmed with the sheer wealth of compounded experiences, her unfathomable plans within plans within plans. Her deep, entrenched, soul-clenching exhaustion.

It left me leaning on the bed, shuddering, breathless. How did this woman live with all that garbage inside her head?

It took me a little while longer to recover. Eventually I looked up and Bluewing was still there, but she seemed...changed, somehow. The way she was staring at me creeped me right the fuck out.

"Hello again, Elizabeth," she said. "I didn't let you keep that vision the last time."

Her expression, her stance, her tone, all of it was different. She'd been weary before, a bit ragged around the edges. Now she was drained. Utterly worn out, like she'd just come back from some kind of harrowing ordeal.

"What—"

"I didn't think I'd have to redo this. It's such a small detail, and yet it might change everything. Time travel gets really old sometimes, you know? Being back here again is...daunting. Nothing is genuine. Nothing is heartfelt. You might think I'm opening myself to you right now, but it's all calculated. I'm telling you this so you'll be that tiny bit more sympathetic next time we meet, and you believe in the cause deeply enough to matter. How fucked up is that?"

"I, uh..."

"It's fine, Liz. You'll get what just happened, eventually. And if I'm wrong, well..." She shrugged. "This will get erased, so no harm done. Unless I finally get myself killed in this timeline, that is. Then you're all screwed either way."

She said it without humor, like stating a simple fact of life. She read the note in her hand and sniffed sharply. "I was in a much better mood back when I wrote this. Whatever." She extended her arm and let go of the yellow piece of paper. "Time to go retread a thousand steps. See you in a few years."

Then Bluewing instantly vanished.

"Th-ffuck!" I stumbled back and nearly fell on my ass as the post-it fluttered to the floor. I hesitated like a dork for a good minute before going to pick it up.

On it she'd made a quick sketch of a butterfly. Quite good, actually. Under it, it read:

 _Pretty fucking cool exit, huh?_

 _Your dad's pajama shirt will be inside-out in the morning._

¯\\(°_o)/¯

I stared at the thing for what felt like hours. I didn't even bother trying to go back to sleep.

Here's a spoiler alert for you. Don't look below if you don't want to be spoiled. Ready?

The note was right. Bluewing was pretty fucking real.

Truth be told...I don't think she helped me out at all.


End file.
